Although initially expecting to only sell a few thousand units, the Raspberry Pi has sold more than 40 million computers to date. Over time it has developed quite a fan base. Part of cultivating that base has been through a dedicated blog and help forum. The Raspberry Pi blog and forum have now turned 10 years old.
We’ve kept every single blog post we’ve ever written up on this site, starting way back in July 2011. Ten years is a long time in internet terms, so you’ll find some dead links in some earlier posts; and this website has undergone a number of total redesigns, so early stuff doesn’t tend to have the pretty thumbnail associated with it to show you what it’s all about. (Our page design didn’t use them back then.) But all the same, for the internet archeologists among you, or those interested in the beginnings of Raspberry Pi, those posts from before we even had hardware are worth flicking through.
There are two organizations involved. Raspberry Pi Trading makes the hardware, the magazines, the peripherals, etc. The Raspberry Pi Foundation runs the charitable programs.
Previously:
(2021) Raspberry Pi Begins Selling its RP2040 Microcontroller for $1
(2021) The Ongoing Raspberry Pi Fiasco
(2021) Raspberry Pi Users Mortified as Microsoft Repository that Phones Home is Added to Pi OS
(2020) Raspberry Pi: We're Making it Easier to Build Our Devices into Your Hardware
(2020) Raspberry Pi 400: Its Designer Reveals More About the Faster Pi 4 in the $70 PC's Keyboard
Related Stories
Raspberry Pi 400: Its designer reveals more about the faster Pi 4 in the $70 PC's keyboard:
Raspberry Pi's designers have revealed more about the overhauled design of the Raspberry Pi 4 inside its new Raspberry Pi 400 keyboard computer.
The new $70 Raspberry Pi 400, announced on Monday, offers fans of the Raspberry Pi single-board computer a polished, modern take on far less powerful classics from the 1980s like the BBC Micro, ZX Spectrum and Commodore Amiga.
[...] Raspberry Pi senior principal engineer Simon Martin has posted a blog answering the questions some fans have raised about whether the Pi 400 is a left-handed device.
[...] Martin explains that the Pi 400 team didn't opt for the Raspberry Pi Compute Module – a compact variant of the board without ports for industrial applications – because it was more efficient to make a custom PCB at the scale at which the Pi 400 is being made at Sony's manufacturing facility in Wales.
Raspberry Pi has launched a program for approved design partners to help businesses integrate Raspberry Pi into new products:
As it has its best ever year for sales, Raspberry Pi wants to do more to help businesses that want to integrate its tiny computers into their devices.
The Cambridge-based single-board computer maker has sold seven million Raspberry Pi units during 2020. In March, Raspberry Pi CEO Eben Upton said it had its second highest monthly sales ever, reaching 640,000 units, with sales accelerating as people sought cheap computers for learning during lockdown.
[...] But a big chunk of its sales are destined for industrial applications. Raspberry Pi estimates 44% of the computers are sold to the industrial market each year. It bases this figure on the observation that large numbers of older models continue being bought after sales of the latest Raspberry Pi decline.
[...] To support industrial customers, Raspberry Pi has launched an Approved Design Partners program that other businesses match up with if they want to integrate the Raspberry Pi into their products.
It's also published a new 'for industry' website with resources for those who want to integrate the Pi into their products. The primary model for that is the Compute Module 4, which lacks the usual USB and HDMI ports and is compact enough to fit in small products.
Several sites are covering an incident affecting Raspberry Pi OS deployments since last week. Quietly, without disclosure or warning, a package added a Microsoft repository and OpenPGP key to the system. The latter effectively gives the former full root access, in principle, to the whole system. The former checks in with Microsoft's servers any time APT refreshes its cache.
$ grep -i pretty /etc/os-release
PRETTY_NAME="Raspbian GNU/Linux 10 (buster)"How to know if you're affected/infected already:
$ cat /etc/apt/sources.list.d/vscode.list
### THIS FILE IS AUTOMATICALLY CONFIGURED ###
# You may comment out this entry, but any other modifications may be lost.
deb [arch=amd64,arm64,armhf] http://packages.microsoft.com/repos/code
stable main
Issue has been taken with both what has been done and how it has been deployed. The official explanation is, for now, that resource hog Visual Studio was to be made available by default on the Raspberry Pi for development for their first entry into microcontrollers, the Raspberry Pi Pico. This is in spite of the established presence of many light weight editors and IDEs alredy[sic] available through vetted repositories. Not to mention the package could have been added to the established, vetted repositories. Threads on the topic over at the Raspberry Pi Forum are quickly locked by moderators and then deleted.
- TechRights. Raspberry Pi (at Least Raspbian GNU/Linux and/or Raspberry Pi Foundation) Appears to Have Been Infiltrated by Microsoft and There Are Severe Consequences
- TechRights. Raspberry Pi Foundation is Trying to Cover Up Its Deal With the Devil by Censoring Its Own Customers
- CyberCity. Heads up: Microsoft repo secretly installed on all Raspberry Pi's Linux OS
- Hot Hardware. Raspberry Pi Users Mortified As Microsoft Repository That Phones Home Is Added To Pi OS
- The Linux Gamer. Microsoft INFILTRATES Raspberry Pi OS
Developer Gavin L Rebeiro has posted[*see note below] a five-part article series at Techrights on how to deal with the ongoing Raspberry Pi fiasco by salvaging existing hardware with a replacement operating system.
- Part I: Acknowledgements
- Part II: Introduction
- Part III: Fundamentals
- Part IV: Doing The Task
- Part V: All The Rest
He covers the background, the technical principles, some methods for mitigation, proposes using NetBSD in place of the GNU/Linux, Raspberry Pi OS. Finally, he walks through installation of NetBSD.
Raspberry Pi Announces RP2040 Chips For $1
Earlier this year the Raspberry Pi Foundation announced the $4 Raspberry Pi Pico with RP2040 microcontroller for doing embedded development. Now that RP2040 chip is being sold for just $1 USD via their resellers for those wanting to build their own electronics with this Raspberry Pi silicon.
[...] The Raspberry Pi Foundation announced they have shipped over 600k Raspberry Pi Pico boards this year and orders for another 700k. More creators and other businesses meanwhile have been seeking to build out their own wares using the RP2040 chip, which has now led the group to offering the chip for $1 USD in single-unit sales. By this autumn they expect "serious volume" of the RP2040 chips for those looking to build out their own wares with this tasty silicon.
Raspberry Silicon update: RP2040 on sale now at $1
Also at CNX Software. Alasdair Allan says:
Today's announcement is for single unit quantity only. We're still figuring out what reel-scale pricing will look like in the autumn, but we expect it to be significantly lower than that.
Previously: Raspberry Pi Releases "Pico" Microcontroller at $4 Per Unit
Raspberry Pi Users Mortified as Microsoft Repository that Phones Home is Added to Pi OS
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 25 2021, @09:00PM (1 child)
I like strawberry pi better, so tasty. FIRST POST !!!!!
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 25 2021, @11:52PM
The parent clearly noted "Frist Post!!" How is that off-topic?
Kids these days...
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 25 2021, @09:06PM (1 child)
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 25 2021, @10:07PM
You should see the look of horror and disgust on Reinhold's face when he saw a recent picture of Phoebe Cates. Did not age well.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 25 2021, @10:05PM (10 children)
Of which 39 million are sitting in drawers waiting for a project when I have time real soon now....
(Score: 3, Informative) by Eratosthenes on Sunday July 25 2021, @11:26PM (4 children)
Mine lives on my 80mm refractor, controlling a German equitorial mount, auto-guiding, and a camera running Kstars.
(Score: 2) by dx3bydt3 on Monday July 26 2021, @11:20AM (3 children)
That sounds very cool. Is it a DIY you put together and/or is there a telescope controller project for the Pi?
I had my dob linked up to kstars a few years ago, but the setup was a bit of a kludge.
To home it I had to first home the scope with the native controller, then point it at the celestial pole, and then carefully without moving it power cycle and then something I forget with a process that linked it up in kstars.
I rarely bother with the controller these days anyway the things I want to see I can find faster manually by star hopping. I break it out for comets and things I don't remember how to find.
(Score: 2) by Eratosthenes on Wednesday July 28 2021, @02:57AM (2 children)
I use an image called Astroberry [astroberry.io], which has all the relevant programs. Kstars is rather clunky on occassion, using the INDI set of astronomy drivers. And Yes, you still need to do a polar alignment if you have a GEM, but there is the astro-tortilla which can do plate solving, and thus auto-alignment? Haven't managed that yet, still trying to get a reliable power source. Using the Pi over wifi can be a pain, if the power to run it drops too low!
(Score: 2) by dx3bydt3 on Wednesday July 28 2021, @10:42AM (1 child)
For power, I'd suggest getting a dc-dc buck step down converter. You can operate it off say a 6 or 12v supply/battery and it will output a steady voltage for the Pi. There are versions with a trim potentiometer to set the voltage so you can bump the output up to 5.1v like the official supplies had prior to USB-C.
(Score: 2) by Eratosthenes on Saturday July 31 2021, @06:58AM
Thanks! I have been using a buck converter, Not sure if I have the potentiometer, but know I know to look, The USB C power of a hub powered by 12V seems not to work well.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Freeman on Monday July 26 2021, @02:46PM (1 child)
Perhaps, but the RaspberryPi foundation is also doing good work. Not just selling RaspberryPi hardware.
https://www.raspberrypi.org/about/ [raspberrypi.org]
I mean, that just sounds cool.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 26 2021, @03:11PM
Your comment is more wide open to attack than Pearl Harbor was on December 7, 1941.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 26 2021, @05:45PM
I'm running a PiHole, Nextcloud server, Home Assistant server, two Kodi streaming boxes and a device that watches my garage door and notifies me if I forgot to shut it. I have a few more with other projects in various stages. in fact, I might be the reason they are in such short supply right now.
(Score: 2) by richtopia on Monday July 26 2021, @06:00PM (1 child)
1 million in use isn't too bad.
I have three sitting idle. The gen 1 and zero really limit the available projects. I used to run my web server on my ODROID-C2 but I've returned to x86 after moving to docker.
(Score: 2) by Oakenshield on Monday July 26 2021, @07:15PM
I have retired/replaced all of my gen #1 (original B+) boards. I had one that ran for years without a single hiccup as a (slow) NAS. It was plenty fast enough to stream music. I had a pi-hole on an old B+ that ran for years until an OS and pi-hole version upgrade rendered it too slow to service my whole LAN. Unfortunately Buster is a little resource hungry for the old boards; even without GUIs. I had a Zero W with a camera module taking pictures out my back window at home, but it's in the junk box now too.
One of the problems I have seen with the Zeros and old B+s is that they are too slow to talk to some sensors. I can't get my dht11's to work at all on older hardware.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 26 2021, @01:43AM (5 children)
So.. how's the enrollments in Tertiary Computer Science courses doing?
That "40 million" is really "39,999,000 sold to computer-literate over-30 year-olds."
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 26 2021, @05:42AM (2 children)
Yes, let's forget that the RPi was supposed to make the Microcomputer Experience accessible to a generation where CS enrollments were tanking, not make millions for the Maker™ Industry.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 26 2021, @06:04AM (1 child)
They can do both.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 26 2021, @04:46PM
And, have they done both?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by DannyB on Monday July 26 2021, @03:27PM (1 child)
The RPi makes a number of things accessible to young people. Open source, simple programming languages. The delight of having that first experience of their program controlling some LEDs or a motor or something in the real world. Sort of like the delight in the 1970s of having your first BASIC program actually work.
Not all of those people may enroll in CS courses. Yet they may gain more than a casual computer literacy because of the RPi.
It reminds me of the UCSD p-System from the 1970s and early 1980s. It was a non profit effort to put out this system that ran on many different hardware from Apple II to DEC minicomputers. You could compile your Pascal code, and the binary could be immediately run on any other UCSD p-System without recompiling. (gee, sounds like modern Java)
It was not as fast as machine code could execute. But it was (A) far more productive to develop then assembly, and (B) portable across systems without having to re-develop (or even re compile) your program for a different machine.
Apple recognized this and derived Apple Pascal from the UCSD p-System. This enabled people learning programming to have a development system with editor, compiler, linker that was vastly better than BASIC. Enabled much more sophisticated programs with a heap and dynamic memory allocation, recursive functions, etc.
The RPi is a similar thing for hardware and makers. Even if you have no interest in using GPIO or controlling hardware, the RPi may be the only computer some kids can afford, and connect to a TV.
I would call it a success. Especially given how many they sold. Similar to the p-System, it became so commercially successful that the UCSD was afraid of losing their non profit status. So they spun the p-System out into a commercial company SofTech.
People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 26 2021, @03:58PM
"It reminds me of the UCSD p-System from the 1970s and early 1980s. It was a non profit effort to put out this system that ran on many different hardware from Apple II to DEC minicomputers. "
The licensing from UCSD was fucked, and it ended up in the hands of Softech Microsystems then a company in France that
has sat on it for decades.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 26 2021, @06:28AM (6 children)
I wonder if they still ban people on the forum that bring up the fact that they forced a Microsoft repository into the repo updates of the Raspberry Pi OS [soylentnews.org]... it certainly gave me pause as to having much to do with them.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by canopic jug on Monday July 26 2021, @06:36AM (4 children)
Same here, though I submitted the above article and the telemetry discussion. I've not use the RPi forums since they pulled that crap, the inclination just vanished once I examined the telemetry they had sneakily injected and tried to hide. One further indication of the decline and that they may not have learned their lesson from what happened to OLPC is that they now have at least one microsofter on their board of directors [raspberrypi.org]. Even if RPF were to start today, it would take a while to clean up and longer to repair their reputation.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Monday July 26 2021, @12:18PM
Yeah, this is why we can't have nice things.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 26 2021, @12:40PM (2 children)
I lost a lot of respect for them when people were asking for help getting hardware-accelerated Open GL(ES) programs running under Stretch and at the time they just seemed to wash their hands of the problems as if they didn't know or care about hardware-accelerated 3D. I managed to get some games running outside of X by recompiling them with some code changes but doing it while X was running seemed to need serious trickery.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 26 2021, @02:24PM (1 child)
Actually the thread I'm thinking of was someone upset about software-rendered GL being screwed up on Stretch [raspberrypi.org]. But the RPF said (regarding mesa-utils and software-rendering):
So they basically passed the buck upstream. He made the point that they make their money from the Pi hardware not the software. What I was unimpressed with is that we're not talking about some obscure package. Surely it's in their interests for GL to run smoothly on their Pi product? Software-rendering might matter less than hardware-accelerated GLES but support for that seemed patchy too as per my parent comment. The worrying part was the comment that they had no idea how that stuff works. You'd hope they'd have at least one 3D graphics driver expert on their team and not just be blindly repackaging Debian stuff whether it works on their device or not. They really upset the user in that thread as well.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 28 2021, @07:18AM
That was just painful to read. I get the point that they don't control upstream. But the absolute inability to understand that consumers may not understand that, especially with Raspbian being the official OS, was almost beyond compare.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday July 26 2021, @03:30PM
Friend, I don't think this is a subject you should be talking about.
No discussion.
This is definitely not a subject that should be disgust in a public forum.
People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 26 2021, @06:49PM
Too bad all you (glorified?) Windows users couldn't buy more open devices. But hey, suck up to slaveware peddlers for convenience. that will help the pitiful open, secure hardware availability situation.